Mr. Speaker, many years ago Canada decided that a new town was going to be built in the Mackenzie Delta because Aklavik, the regional centre at the time, was sinking and would soon disappear. Well, we know now that Aklavik didn’t disappear. We saw it in the budget documents.
After a few locations were surveyed, Mr. Speaker, East Three was chosen as the new site for the proposed town. My grandfather Dan McLeod was part of the original survey team in 1954, and 1958 was the beginning of the community of Inuvik.
For such a young community Inuvik has a very colourful history. For many years we had the Canadian Forces base in Inuvik with 400 to 500 people. That closed down in the mid-’80s. Many families left, but a lot of the families, or a lot of the kids from the CFS, are still living in Inuvik and made Inuvik their home.
Mr. Speaker, despite all the negatives surrounding residential schools, Inuvik was the location of both Stringer Hall and Grollier Hall. We had an opportunity, growing up in Inuvik, to go to school with the CFS kids. We called them students from Grollier Hall and Stringer Hall. We made many good friends from the hostels and with CFS kids. We have many good friends to this day. That was one of very few positives that came out of the whole residential school experience.
In the mid-’70s there was an oil boom in Inuvik and the Beaufort-Delta that went on strong for a few years and then just stopped as quickly as it started. It’s starting to pick back up again, Mr. Speaker. We see that with the announcement of all the money spent on exploration. We expect it to pick up again soon. We will be back to booming, and the residents of Beaufort-Delta will benefit greatly from this.
This summer, Mr. Speaker, Inuvik will be celebrating its 50th anniversary with two weeks of celebrations. Many activities are planned for it. We have the Great Northern Arts Festival. We’ve got two weeks of events going on. We’d like to have a ball tournament, but our ball fields were torn down, so we can’t have that. It will all be on July 18. It’s the big day; it’s the 50th Anniversary civic holiday. They’re planning a homecoming. We’ll have many past and former residents of Inuvik coming to Inuvik to take part in these celebrations.
I’d like to use this opportunity to congratulate the Town of Inuvik for all their perseverance over the years. I welcome all visitors from the NWT to come up this summer and join us in celebrating 50 years.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
